Unpacking my Library: Walter Benjamins Magic
Encyclopedia

Thus there is in the life of the collector
a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order. Naturally, his
existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship
to ownership, something about which we will have more to say later; also a relationship
to objects which does not emphasize their functional utilitarian valuethat
is, their usefulness—but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage,
of their fate. The most profound enchantment of the collector is the locking of
the individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final
thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and
thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the
lock of his property. The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownershipfor
a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia
whose quintessence is the fate of his object.